Unhealthy Man Love

Editor’s note: This column also appears on my other site.

“What a day this has been.
What a rare mood I’m in.
Why, it’s almost like being in love.”
-Nat King Cole

He’s not just another player to you. Not just another cog in the success of your favorite team. His stats mean something, and you root hard for him, no matter what the team does around him. Just the mention of his name brings a smile to your face and arouses memories of past greatness. You know he’s destined for immortality, even if you’re the only one who thinks so. Trade rumors stop your heart. You don’t understand why he hasn’t been offered the 15-year extension he so richly deserves. If he’s a college athlete, you follow his pro career like he’s your progeny. Might as well face it, you’re in unhealthy man love.

Unhealthy man love is a more advanced version of a condition some have termed the “non-sexual man crush.” It is the deepest devotion a fan can have to an athlete. While not necessarily monogamous, unhealthy man love is as rare (and occasionally fickle) as romantic love. Some fans will feel it more often than others, just like some people fall in love at the drop of a hat. But the real thing will only come along a handful of times over any sports-consuming lifetime.

You can’t maintain this level of affection for two players on the same team at the same time. It’s just not possible. Even if feelings get to crush level, only one player will rise to claim unhealthy man love. The funny thing is that on any given team, a handful of players will earn this status from different groups of fans. Take my two favorite single season teams – the 2005 White Sox and 2001-2002 Indiana Basketball. In just those two seasons, different people could claim unhealthy man love for Aaron Rowand (Rowand’s Rowdies), Joe Crede (the perpetually shirtless “Crede’s Crew”), Jon Garland, Paul Konerko, and Mark Buehrle (my guy) from the Sox, and Tom Coverdale, A.J. Moye (my friend peanut still calls him her “baby daddy”), and Kyle Hornsby (who inspired the classic sorority t-shirt slogan, “Kyle makes me Hornsby”) from the Hoosiers.

So what do players like this – fan devotions like this – have in common?

Anyone who’s fallen in any sort of love can point to a moment of realization. In most cases, this is a completely emotional shift, only sometimes caused by the object of the affection. In sports, though, there is a moment. A game. A play. Something the athlete did to vault himself in your heart from mere member of the team to veritable demi-god. Of course, I can’t begin to guess about anybody else’s moments. I can give you three of mine, only two of which turned out to be for real.

The first moment came in October of 2002. Indiana was playing a home football game against a Wisconsin team ranked in the top 25 (although a Wisco fan before the game told me they had no business being ranked). Buddies and I watched the Badgers jump out to a 29-10 third quarter lead, and slowly let it eek away. Down three points with under 4 minutes left to play, the Hoosiers faced third down and 17. The ruggedly handsome (and almost completely devoid of talent) Gibran Hamdan found Courtney Roby open some five yards shy of the first down marker. Roby shook a defender and dove over another to make the first down by the length of his arm. That play led me to the point where I’m demanding Steve McNair throw Roby the damn ball on every play.

One important thing to note about this moment: I was there. Seeing a play like that live has a profound impact on any fan’s feelings about an athlete. Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if I hadn’t been in Memorial Stadium that afternoon. Maybe a different fan saw another game, another play, in person and felt connected to a different athlete.

The second moment – stretched out over two hours or so – came a mere two months later. A group of us got baseline tickets to see IU play Vandy at Assembly Hall (the best seats I’ve ever had for any basketball game). The Hoosiers handled Vanderbilt, thanks mostly to freshman prodigy Bracey Wright dropping 31 points. He had it all that night, nailing threes, floating in little 10-foot teardrops, even hammering a breakaway dunk in the second half. That night, he was still the best recruit from The Colony, TX. He was replacing the scoring we had lost from the Final Four team. And I was unhealthily smitten.

This, as anybody who knows IU buckets has guessed by now, is the case that never developed into real unhealthy man love. Part of it wasn’t Bracey’s fault. Back problems nagged him throughout his Hoosier career, keeping him from developing into the superstar he was expected to be. But it was obvious that Bracey wasn’t quite what you’d call a “team” guy, either. My soon-to-be brother-in-law once described him as college basketball Kobe, and it changed the way I watched Indiana games. Bracey sulked if he didn’t get his shots, forced the issue entirely to often, and rarely made his teammates better. Hard to blame that on an achy back. Whatever the reason, this case proves the delicacy of unhealthy man love. Even the most promising emotion can be erased.

The third moment is the strongest for me for a few reasons. It is the most recent, and therefore the most vivid in my memory. It involves the White Sox, unquestionably my favorite team in sports. And it contributed directly to a championship, which is, after all, what we as sports fans are after. I’m talking about game 2 of the ALCS. Mark Buehrle spent just a few minutes more than a literal moment on the mound in his nine-inning, 99-pitch complete game victory over the Angels. I had always loved his tendency to work quickly and pound the strike zone, and he reached the peak of both that night. More impressive (and more endearing) was his desire to go out and pitch the tenth. Anything for a victory. Combine that performance, that attitude, and the circumstances . . . how could I not fall head over heels?

We are more inclined to shower unhealthy man love on a home-grown player or student from our alma mater than on a free agent or transfer. Quite simply, getting to know someone over time inspires deeper affection and devotion. Seeing a player overcome struggles early in his career creates a deeper bond between himself and we the fans, who can identify with the effort it takes to triumph over workplace adversity.

This is probably why most unhealthy man love is reserved for good-but-not-quite-great players instead of superstars. Looking at the three teams that have given me flashes of unhealthy man love, it is worth noting that the best players to grace those teams in the years I’ve rooted for them (Antwaan Randle El, Jared Jeffries, and Frank Thomas) ever inspired anything more than run of the mill insane fandom. We admire the supremely talented. We may even wish to be them. But our kinship with them is limited by the fact that most of us aren’t that good at anything. Rooting for someone like Aaron Rowand, a “blue-collar” player who squeezes every last drop of production out of his talent, is like rooting for ourselves. We may never be as skilled as the superstars, but at our best, we can aspire to match the work ethic of solid athletes everywhere.

Watching a player from the infancy of his career also gives us a chance to get to know his personality. Does he have a sense of humor? Is he a good teammate? How does he handle pressure? Is he loyal? (See the preceding paragraph. There’s no unhealthy man love available to a hired gun) In essence, is he a good guy? We would rather adore players we imagine would be our friends in private life. For example, Mark Buehrle is a millionaire athlete who has enough little kid in him to spend a rain delay running and sliding on the tarp with the bullpen catcher. Tell me you wouldn’t want to toss a few back with a guy like that.

One of the great things about sports is that even though millions of fans share common loyalties, each fan’s rooting experience is completely unique. Our general loyalties are shaped early in our lives, but opinions, emotions, and ties to players are in a constant state of flux, depending on which games we saw, where we saw them, and who was there with us. Unhealthy man love is special because one fan gets to share a genuine, exclusive bond with an athlete. Even if it’s just in a corner of his own mind.

(Now if you’ll excuse me, I have nine more Mark Buehrle posters to hang.)

Dave Van Der Laan is (among other gigs) a freelance writer. To offer questions, comments, criticism or praise, send an email to davevdl@gmail.com.